Rewrite

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Hello my wonderful readers! How is everyone on this Wednesday? So we've jumped far. From New Years to the end of the month. Does anyone remember what big event is at the January? Well you're going to find out. We've got a mix of Rowan and Steven in the next two chapters, and then it's all Five-0s in the two chapters after that. So you know, that should get your Five-0 fix. We also have a VERY large void event coming up in the next few chapters. I might be able to get before 250th chapter, but we'll see. Don't forget to leave me a review and I'll see you guys on Friday.

Chapter 239

This was a rough day for Steven. Except it wasn't supposed to be about him, it was supposed to be about his Aunt Deb and how she was saying her final goodbye to Leonard who died recently. She was holding his ashes and giving him a more than touching farewell to him and Steve was barely listening.

How could he? He had just gotten his heart ripped out by his friends. He was still reeling in shock over it, even though it had happened a few days ago. And today of all days, he couldn't stop thinking about what had happened.

Deb was in her white wedding dress that Rowan had helped pick out. They were all wearing ceremonial leis for the occasion. They were at the hotel where Deb and Leonard had gotten married, with the beach right behind her.

After Aunt Deb was done saying good-bye to Leonard she handed his urn to Steve and told him to take good care of him. With her blessing he walked out onto the beach where Kawika was waiting to accept the ashes to give Leonard a proper Hawaiian send off. Kawika took the urn and the leis, pressed his forehead to Steve's and then he returned to his boat.

By the time Steve had walked back to where Aunt Deb and Mary were standing, with Joanie on Mary's hip, Kawika was out on the ocean. They watched as Kawika disappeared on the horizon, to scatter Leonard's ashes out in the ocean.

He put his arm around Aunt Deb and let her lean on him and then tried to stifle the sigh that escaped him. She looked up at him, took in the look on his face and then frowned almost patiently at him.

"What's wrong?" Aunt Deb asked him. "I know your mind is elsewhere… is it… is it back with Rowan?"

Steve grimaced. "I'm sorry…"

"No, no, it's alright. I know you miss her. I know it's been hard on you."

Yes, yes he did miss her. But he shouldn't have been allowing it to affecting him. "I'm sorry to be like this… it's you're special goodbye to Leonard… and I'm ruining it…"

"Come on, now, Stevie, it's a funeral how happy could it really be? No, don't you worry about that. We've all got our own pain in our lives. Come on, tell your Aunt Deb what's going on in that head of yours."

"I really don't want to make this about me, it's just that… it's just… it's Rowan's birthday today."

And it was. Today was the 21st of January. Rowan would be turning 30, somewhere in the world. Without him. And his best friend had just dropped a massive bombshell on him.

"Aw that's right," Mary said. "I forgot about that."

"That's not all is it?" Aunt Deb asked.

"No," Steve admitted. "I uh… Danny let it slip last night that uh… everyone was invited to a live showing of her birthday party. Everyone except me."

It came as a shock. To hear the others talking about the gifts they had sent off with a known fucking terrorist, to be delivered to Rowan and wondering if she would get them on time and like them. They hadn't seen him come in, hadn't heard him approach, but when they saw him standing there, coincidentally after asking: "what party?" upon Danny asking Kono about the dress code for it, they had all gone quiet.

His stern glare got the rest of the explanation out. Kong had approached Kono, at the request of Wo Fat earlier in the month about the topic of her birthday. Rowan missed her Five-0 friends, and he was willing to have them share in her birthday in some way. He wasn't going to let them talk to her, but he was collecting gifts as donation. The invitation to the live show came only after Nahele showed interest in wishing to see the grand party Wo Fat was putting together for her. He agreed to a one-way, live recording of the party, where they could sit and watch the festivities. Kong, himself, was going to put together his own little party for them, and Kono had been told that it was black tie, much like Rowan's party was.

Everyone who knew Rowan had been invited. Everyone except Steven.

Danny had said it was because they knew it wouldn't have made him happy. That he would have wanted more, a chance to talk to her, or to use the footage as a way to get her back, and they didn't want that. They just wanted a good and happy time together.

And despite feeling utterly betrayed, he understood why he hadn't been included.

"Aw Stevie I'm sorry," she whispered, wrapping her own arm around him to try and console him.

"Well the morning's yours, Aunt Deb," Steve said, desperate to get off the topic. "What do you wanna do?"

"What do I wanna do?" she echoed. "Well, I want to drive your truck."

Yeah Steve hadn't been expecting that. "What?"

"Your pickup truck. I wanna take that bad boy for a spin."

Mary was suddenly grinning, she let out an excited: "Oh my gosh!"

Steve did not share that excitement. "Do you even know how to drive Aunt Deb?"

"Honey, I lived in Los Angeles my whole life. I was driving before you were in camo diapers."

Camo diapers. Wow, she was getting some of her dry quips from Danny, he just knew it.

"I know, but why the sudden urge to drive a truck?" Mary asked. Yes, yes, good question! He wasn't too pleased that she agreed with the Camo diaper comment though.

"Well, you know, actually, it's for Leonard," she explained, rooting through her purse for something. "Last year, we got together and we made up a list of things that each one of us wanted to do before we died."

"What? Like a bucket list."

"Yes, exactly," she said flashing the paper at him but not long enough for him to get a good look at it.

"What was on it?" Mary asked.

"Well, we wanted to see the pyramids, we wanted to learn how to ski and I wanted to get a tattoo."

Steve was already grimacing. "Oh don't get a tattoo. Trust me, it's not the…" but she was already rolling up her sleeve to show him the one she got.

"Too late."

"She got a tattoo," Steve said with a sigh while Mary crowed with excitement. The little red heart on Deb's forearm held her and Leonard's initials.

It merely reminded him that, when he finally proposed to Rowan and they got married, he planned to get a tattoo for her too. Like his friend Freddie had done when he got married. He was going to let Rowan pick the font of her own name, and collaborate with him on the concept, maybe… maybe even convince her to get a matching one too. He figured Freddie would have like that gesture as much as he would have loved Rowan.

Especially since Rowan helped him get over the guilt and the trauma he felt over Freddie's death.

"Yeah, sorry kiddos, but the two of you are not the only ones in the family now with ink."

"Okay, good. I'm glad you have ink," Steve said, not liking how his sweet and usually innocent Aunt Deb said it.

"So uh, anyway, we never did get to finish the list. But one of the items on Leonard's list was he wanted to drive a police car."

And then she turned her eyes up to Steve. Whose truck had flashing lights and sirens, just like a police car. Well, that explained why she wanted to drive the truck.

"That's such a boy thing," Mary said but Aunt Deb was undeterred.

"So, uh, how many ponies under that hood?"

Oh god. "I'd really prefer you didn't find out," he said with a wince. Driving with Rowan was terrifying and she had practice, he didn't want to be just as terrified with his aunt deb.

"Steven, I hate to play this card but I just lost my husband, so you're not really gonna deny me this, are you?"

Well fuck she had him there.

Cue to them flying down the highway in Steve's Silverado, lights on, sirens blaring, Aunt Deb not so expertly weaving them in and out of traffic while tires screeched and horns honked around them.

Steve was desperately clinging to the grab handle above his head and trying very hard not to lose his breakfast while all three of the women in his truck were giggling and laughing.

Joanie kept repeating: "We're flying." From her car seat. She would have loved being in a car with Rowan.

"Are you okay?" Deb asked him.

"Yea, I'm good," he said through tight lips.

"You look a little green," she teased.

"Aw god, can you watch the road! Please keep your eyes on the road!"

"This is torture for you, isn't it?" Mary asked. She was sitting directly behind him and he couldn't turn around to yell at her.

Instead he managed to mumble out a pained: mhmm.

Joanie began to laugh, probably because her mother was trying to hide her own laughter. "Are you going to puke?" Mary taunted

"Puke, puke, puke!" Joanie began to chant. Yeah what a supportive family he had.

"No Joanie," he said quickly. "I'm not going to puke."

"Puke, puke, puke," Joanie and Marry chanted together.

"I'm not gonna puke. Mary tell her to stop. Tell her to be quiet."

All around him the women in his life were laughing at him and he swore, he could hear Rowan laughing at him too. God when was this nightmare going to end?

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

After Diego almost succeeded in taking Rowan, Wo Fat had been particularly merciless with him. He had taken out those who were his staunchest supporters. He had massacred what had been left of his family. He undermined his connections, and swayed them away from Diego and to Armando, by any means necessary, whether that be monetary or force. He had obliterated his stock and the last that he had heard of Diego he had retreated to some unknown safe house to recoup.

After the rescue, Conejo had been gracious enough to allow Wo Fat the use of his nickname. No more chunky Sin Nombre. Wo Fat had proven his worthiness and was allowed to call him Conejo. But it was terribly strange to call someone like Sin Nombre rabbit. So he settled on calling him Con instead, less awkward and more… friendly.

After New Year's, Wo Fat found out that Rowan had taken Conejo's request to get herself professional help seriously. Along with calling Nahele once a week, she had taken to calling a number out on the West Coast of Canada. A shrink, she had said. One that she knew from her youth. It had been suspicious, as Rowan rarely spoke of her youth, but he was starting to realize that there was something about her past that she wanted to stay hidden. He had also long since understood that Rowan knew exactly who she was, she wasn't as lost as she claimed to be. He just didn't know what else the girl could have been running from.

With Diego on the fences and Rowan still on lock down, Wo Fat was charged with the most strenuous task of his life.

Planning Rowan's Birthday while she was in the house.

This was a problem because he wanted most of her birthday to be a surprise. She knew that she was going to end up putting on a concert, because they loved to hear her sing and she loved to perform, even though she said she didn't want to be famous. He had been allowing her to practice, let her see the set up on the stage so she knew where to stand and what not. But he also didn't want her to take part in any of the planning. She was allowed to tell him what she wanted, what the color scheme was and what she wanted for décor, but she was not allowed to actually see to any of the details.

She had been a little skeptical, seeing as New Year's had not been the giant blow out she wanted. So he kept assuring her that all would be alright, and that she would, one hundred percent, have a reason to wear the wonderful dress that Armando got her for Christmas that she ended up not being able to wear on New Year's as planned.

It took all twenty days, but Wo Fat had gotten everything ready by the time the twenty-first actually showed up. The stage was up, the lights were working. The décor was perfect and everyone knew their schedules and their cues.

On top of that, to ensure that she stayed out of his way and out of the party planning her had booked a team of aestheticians to come and take care of Rowan. He had a masseuse to give her a hot stone massage, a nail technician to give her a mani-pedi to match her amazing dress, and a stylist for her hair and a stylist for her make up.

His imuoto was going to be pampered and look wonderful on her thirtieth birthday.

Which was important because he was live streaming the event.

A last minute decision that was made to appease the boy. Nahele had wanted to see the festivities and suddenly all the Five-0's and everyone she knew in Hawaii was going to be in Kong's basement watching the feeds.

All because, earlier in the month, he asked her Five-0 friends to donate birthday gifts. This had sparked the desire from the kid to see Rowan on her birthday and… well… he didn't know how to say no. So on top of sending a special note to buy a gift that could be from Steve without actually telling him that the event was happening, he also had a note that, under non circumstances was Steve to end up in Kong's basement at that live viewing.

The gifts had arrived in bulk all at once last week. Wo Fat then spent a few days opening everything up and making sure that all cards and contents were suitable to give to her and didn't contain any secret messages and then he tasked JC with rewrapping everything.

At that moment the gifts in question were all sitting on a table in the foyer and as people came they would leave there offering there for her. So Far, unbeknownst to Wo Fat, Rowan had proven to have more friends in Colombia than he thought. Each guard working at that house had small offering to put on the table, even the servants had gifts to leave her.

But that was Rowan, she could make friends with everyone.

Everyone was going to take a break from running Diego out of town and running drug operations to participate in Rowan's birthday. Wo Fat was in charge of making sure everything got set up, Conejo was in charge of security, which had been hired on to make sure no one snuck in, JC was in charge of music and Armando was in charge of food.

Kong had been kind enough to send down one of the techies to be in charge of the live stream videoing.

They had woken Rowan up that morning with birthday pancakes and everyone gave her birthday hugs. JC tried to give her something called birthday beats and had Wo Fat had practically punched him out. Rowan had to explain the concept to him, which was getting a punch on the arm for every year she had been alive. He thought that to be the stupidest tradition ever, but both she and Conejo were certain that it was just that, a tradition.

By lunch the beauticians had arrived and Rowan was sequestered in her room, most likely until the party. He sent up a tray of small finger sandwiches and tea so she could have her own fancy High Tea for her birthday.

He heard the squeals of excitement in the backyard when the tea service arrived in her room.

Yes, Wo Fat had the day fully planned out and he was going to make sure that nothing, got in the way of Rowan's Dirty Thirty celebrations.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

As part of her bucket list Deb had treated Mary and Joanie to an epic shopping spree. They left their last store laden down with bags, almost all for Mary and Joanie. There was no point in getting anything new for Deb, she didn't have much longer left, but she indulged Mary and bought at least one dress as to not rouse suspicions.

She had purposely not told Steve or Mary how long, or more aptly how short, she had left as it had destroyed them the first time. She didn't want to hurt them a second time. No, sadly this would come as a surprise but she was going to leave them with a lot more than just money. She was going to leave this earth having completed as much as she could on she and Leonard's bucket list, and having brought happiness to her niece and nephew's lives.

And to help Steven, while Mary was in the dressing room getting her and Joanie into the next set of dresses, she had called up the one person she thought could make it a little better.

If she could have, she would have called Rowan and told her to smarten up and come home. Steven was dying without her. Deb would have been crazy to not have noticed that her poor nephew was practically a skeletal version of himself. Maybe not in body but in emotion. But she couldn't call Rowan so Daniel Williams would have to do.

Danny met them outside the shop where Deb hugged him tightly, and he got a hug from Mary and Joanie too.

"Sorry I couldn't be there with you guys this morning," he said to them. "My uh… my kid brother is in town and it's a full-time job, keeping him in line."

Deb smiled patiently as she under stood that entirely. Mary was a handful herself when she was younger. But that wasn't why she called Danny here.

"I commiserate, I do, but I asked you here for a reason," she said. "I'd like to know what's going on with this party Steven told me about."

Danny groaned. "He tattled on me? Really?" he asked and then sighed. "Alright, look, I know it was crappy of me not to tell him… but come on… you've seen him. He's not… he just hasn't taken the whole thing well. And we all… I unno, we haven't heard from her and what she went through… it was terrible…"

"I never got the full story," Deb said and Mary nodded. "Neither did I. All I know is first she was dead. Then she wasn't. Then they were broken up."

"The short version is they had a massive fight, broke up, Rowan got kidnapped, Steve thought she had just run off. Rowan got tortured for four days, Steve got back together, and almost proposed to Catherine. Steve found out Rowan wasn't where he thought she was, went to get her, her criminal brother faked her death. That broke Steve, like… it did some damage. Then… you know we figured out she was alive, that it was all some ruse, he went to get her, got some phone call from her saying she didn't want to come back and now he's miserable and she's travelling the world."

Both women stared at him. "Tortured?" Aunt Deb echoed as Mary said: "That was the short version… wait he almost proposed to Catherine?"

Aunt Deb smacked Mary. "We can get back to the Catherine… how bad was the whole… torturing business?"

"Yeah, uh we're thinking the damage was extensive, cause her brother went fucking crazy after he got her out of the basement," Danny admitted. "And the Catherine thing… yeah… that was when he thought Rowan had left him for her brother. Before she left, he told Rowan if she wouldn't drop her brother he'd marry Catherine and then you know after he left…"

"He actually followed through?"

"Well… it was that and he got it in his head that if he got back together with Catherine he could replace Rowan with her and be fine… and we're all kind of sure that him buying Catherine a ring is why Rowan didn't come back. And he knows it and it kills him. But that's why I didn't tell him. We want to see if she's okay, and we know he's not okay when we bring her up… so we all sort of thought… that you know… it'd be best if he didn't go. You know?"

Deb did understand but she also understood how Steve felt. He felt out of the loop and like Rowan didn't care.

"And it was… your idea, or Rowan's idea to keep Steve out of it."

"Uh… well as I said… none of us have heard from Rowan, so it was kind of an order from her brother… but uh… we all kind of seconded it… to save Steve's feelings…"

"Except you didn't!" Mary cried. "He's devastated that he wasn't included in this."

"Really? I mean, I wouldn't say devastated, I'd say more… angry…"

But Deb was stuck on a different point. The order to keep Steve out of the loop hadn't come from Rowan, it came from someone else. That meant… that meant that there might be some hope. That Steve could smooth things out with Rowan one day and get back together. Or at least have some sort of conversation with her where he might get closure.

Problem was, Steve wasn't going to go after Rowan. Not with his ego bruised and his pride in question. No, he'd need a nudge, and Deb didn't have the time to work on him either.

"Well what do you want me to do?" Danny cried. "I already said I wouldn't go. I said I'd stay home with him instead or go drinking but you guys are here and he said he was fine…"

"Steven is not fine," Deb said. "You're right. This whole business with Rowan had more than damaged him. And I understand why you and your friends would choose to unincluded him from this. But maybe, it might do him good to see it. To see her. At least to reassure himself that she's okay. And who better for him to have a meltdown around if not his friends?"

Danny winced and Mary straightened. "That's part of the problem, isn't it?" she asked. "You don't want him to have a meltdown and ruin the party…"

"The party, with the livestream, it's supposed to be for the kid. The foster kid Rowan and Steve had. He misses Rowan, and he wants to feel included in her party somehow. None of us want Steve to bring that mood down. The kid has been through enough. Steve has been through enough. We've all… been through enough."

But Deb stood firm. "Daniel," she said patiently. "I want Steve to go to that party." Danny groaned, a grimace firmly rooted on his face. "Now, I don't really want to pull this card but… my husband just died. You're not really going to deny me this are you?"

Danny's mouth fell open. "Wow, emotional blackmail, that's just… wow," he said. "Yeah, yeah, alright, I'll give the host a call and ask if I can bring Steve. There, you happy?"

Deb nodded, it made her very happy and her smile told them that. "Alright dears, you go a head and make your call, Mary why don't you get your car but uh… take your time. There's something I need to do," she said, happy to have gotten her way.

As she left the two, Mary and Joanie were going for the car, while Danny pulled out his phone no doubt to make the phone call he said he would. Deb, on the other hand went to the bank

She got into the bank, briefly contemplated going to a teller, but a teller wouldn't be able to help her. Instead she went to the customer service desk and smiled at the man waiting there for her.

"Hello. I'd like to talk to someone about an asset transfer."

Yes, she was going to make sure that her niece and nephew were going to be well taken care of.